Dance, Monkeys, Dance!

06-26-2012, 04:01 PM

I don't know if you've noticed, but I make videos. Lately, I even make videos with people here in them.

But sometimes these guys, loveable scamps though they be, are a bit tight-lipped. If I thought it was hard making them do a blog post once a week (And it is), getting them to say something clearly and intelligibly on camera is like pulling teeth. From a crocodile. With my bare hands.

I think Garrett spoke for a grand total of 45 seconds when I did the interview filming. Ben hid in his office with the door closed. Mike W was great, but he tends to talk for ten minutes for every minute of usable footage, because he and I are both perfectionists. And I just look ridiculous.

So anyway, I'm turning to you, the community. In blogs, on video, via semaphore or smoke signal...what do you want to know?

Give me some questions you want answered...they can be questions you want to hear anyone's answer to, or targeted to a particular person. Are there things about working at BlitWise you want to find out? Upcoming plans you want to hear about? Keep in mind that the more specific a question, the better a chance that you'll get a coherent answer. Maybe it will be longer than three words.

Personally I never get to read the blog posts (mainly due to never thinking about them), but I LOVE the YouTube videos that demo the new weapons coming out; but, I understand the difficulty of getting the recordings done. I love hearing about new content coming up, but I'd also love to see some of the design concepts you have; like, how you go from drawing paper of doodles with badly made tanks and scribbles for ideas, to reworking it after it's all programmed, to scrapping ideas to make time for better ones (or if it's completely different, I'd love to see HOW weapons get designed from start to finish).

Some work, or discussion, on other games would be ecstatic to hear about (maybe that new game you all keep hinting at ), or just anything new!

Oh and a suggestion for your troubles with recordings: Pick a topic for the video, and then have two of you discuss it with each other. Talking directly to another person on camera should (in theory) make it all flow and make more sense then just talking to the camera

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I was thinking, is there the possibility of new game modes? Like instead of 10 turns per player, there's a game mode where you play to a certain score, maybe with a menu of score choices or even player determined?

I've been bitten by ghosts, haunted by mobe rats, and slapped by vampires. I think I've earned a free hot dog.

@mentallyunstable:
This game mode wouldn't work with the current way Pocket tanks has you select weapons. Some games have very low scores because not all of your weapons do damage. Some disorient, some move the enemy tank, some move you, and some just bury the tank, some just put a wall between you, and some make the terrain bouncy/sticky.

The main problem would be how to assign weapons that would ensure both sides could reach the target score. My first thought was to give both tanks the target practice weapon list. That obviously wouldn't work, because you would end up just Jump Jetting/Rocket Boostering over to the enemy and spinnering them every time. My main concert is to keep a fair game, that still requires strategy, while maintaining the element of luck. I believe that for this game mode to work, and still require strategy in choosing weapons,(as apposed to just spinnering them every time) that you should start out with 5 weapons chosen from a list of 10. After both players have used those up, you re-select 5 more. This way, you don't get too many weapons, and just select your most powerful weapon, (because you have so many that one of them is very likely going to be really strong) but you still have a good list to select from.

@Blitwise: I would like a game mode with HP. I have a few ideas for its implementation. And a game mode for Multi-round games.

Health Points? How will that work?
No matter how this ends up in the game (assuming it does.) I want the Players to choose the HP.

Idea 1: Your power is your HP. You start with a max power high above 100, (like 500, or 1000) and as you take damage your max power is dropped, until you either kill yourself because your power is so low, or your opponent kills you. Alternatively, you could also go with how much the turret on the tank can be moved per turn. (Example: at the beginning can be rotated 720 degrees in any direction, and slowly it becomes less so that with less health, disorientation weapons can ruin you) The idea is just to simulate that, you are in fact, taking damage.
Idea 2: HP is separate. You get 500 or 1000(or what ever the play chooses) and you go till one of you explodes. Pretty straight forward.

But this has the same problem as before. How do you regulate weapons? We can't have everyone starting with 20 weapons each can we? That wouldn't be fair...
Well I see 2 ways currently...

Idea 1: As I described above with Mentallyunstable, Every 5 turns, you re-select 5 new weapons from a random selection
Idea 2: The weapons store/depot. Admittedly this doesn't seem likely to be implemented because of its complexity, But here's show I see it working. Since we can't have each weapon priced individually, (imagine trying to correctly price 275+ weapons...) they are instead priced in groups, or sections. You have the "Low Damage" weapon".(damage 0 - 50 total) The "Medium Damage" weapons.(Damage 51 - 100) The "High Damage" weapons.(101 - 200) The "Specialty" weapons.(Dirt, glue, bouncy, weapons that do several things like the chaos grenade, and disorientation, and jumping weapons... etc.) And "Lazors/Straight shooting" weapons.(torpedo, super laser, etc.) And now its gets more complicated. Sub categories. Well, this could go on for a while. I mean look at all the different weapons.

But how does the store/depot work? Well there are several ways in could work. The ones I'm thinking of are like this:

Idea 1: You start with 500$ (or some currency unique to pocket tanks) and you buy what you can/want.
Idea 2: You all get 5 single shots each.

Each hit on the enemy gets you the damage dealt as money. If you hurt yourself, they get money. After you use up your weapons, you wait for the other player to do the same, then you enter the Depot. This is where the multi-round idea goes with this idea. Each time you buy new weapons, the round resets, based on what you chose in the setting before the game.(terrain reset?) You will keep doing this until all of the tanks die.(4 player please? No? okay...)

This can really ad some strategy to your game-play. Based on which weapons you buy, and how many, it can really make some interesting scenarios. Also having to protect yourself for a reason other than the other person gaining points is likely to make you care about where you are a bit more.(maybe you wouldn't be able to hit them at all if you didn't protect yourself... Shields?)

Multiple Rounds (Player 1 looses. "Best 2 out of 3?" "Sure.")
Pretty straight forward. Just select to play multiple rounds at the beginning. Maybe even keep the scores so that its like having a game with 20 weapons,(2 round game, 10 weapons per person each round) except the terrain is reset. Come to think of it, this basically what I suggested for mentallyunstable, except this resets the terrain, and that idea didn't.

At the beginning of the game, before the weapon selection screen, you can choose to play more than one round.
You can choose:
1 - 10 rounds
Yes/No Reset terrain between rounds
5, 10, 15, or 20 weapons per person per round.

Well there's some ideas I've had for a while. Finally got around to posting them.

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Multiple rounds is great idea even i would love to see this implemented in future (online/multiplayer mode) by Blitwise. About HP, in PT the player who takes the first shot has great advantage and HP will be added advantage for Player1, it wont be fair to Player2. Just my thoughts. Looking forward to @Blitwise response

One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interests - Peter Marshall

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Player 1 has always had a great advantage over the second player. As long as you've played PT for more than 30 minutes straight, you can usually get within 5 degrees/power of them on your first shot. However, you bring up a very good point, and reminded me of 2 very simple ideas that could solve this problem.

Idea 1: Both players fire at once. In a real war, nether side will kindly wait for the other to take there turn and kill them. Likely they will shoot as soon as they can, so that the other side doesn't win. Well, a simple way to add this element to PT is to have both sides Shoot at once. You both choose your angle, your power, use up some moves,(if you move the tank, you will move and then choose to be ready to fire, and the other side, if they were ready, is given a chance to adjust) and when both sides are ready, they fire at once.(No you wouldn't be able to see what there power or angle numbers are, but you can guess based on what you see. You also can't see which weapon the equip, until they shoot it.) No more will you be stuck or buried and have to use up a large explosive just to be able to attack the other player.(this would give them a great shot since you are uncovered and therefore unprotected)

Idea 2: If not having both shoot at the same time, why not switch who shoots first? Every other game the second player would go first instead. If multiple round games were included this would greatly improve the experience.

If any of the staff would let me and everyone else know what they think of our ideas, I would really appreciate it.

sigpic•
"Never put off until tomorrow, what you can put off until the day after" -Mark Twain

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But how does the store/depot work? Well there are several ways in could work. The ones I'm thinking of are like this:

Idea 1: You start with 500$ (or some currency unique to pocket tanks) and you buy what you can/want.
Idea 2: You all get 5 single shots each.

Each hit on the enemy gets you the damage dealt as money. If you hurt yourself, they get money. After you use up your weapons, you wait for the other player to do the same, then you enter the Depot. This is where the multi-round idea goes with this idea. Each time you buy new weapons, the round resets, based on what you chose in the setting before the game.(terrain reset?) You will keep doing this until all of the tanks die.(4 player please? No? okay...)

This can really ad some strategy to your game-play. Based on which weapons you buy, and how many, it can really make some interesting scenarios. Also having to protect yourself for a reason other than the other person gaining points is likely to make you care about where you are a bit more.(maybe you wouldn't be able to hit them at all if you didn't protect yourself... Shields?